An excerpt from an interview the late Prof. Solomon Mutswairo gave in 1998. Makes wonder why these “un-telegenic” so-called nationalist public intellectuals fail to see the hypocrisy and futility of their rhetoric.

Angela A. Williams: Dr Tafataona Mahoso believes that Zimbabweans should begin constructing their own African reality in this post-colonial era. Do you agree, and how does writing poetry in English fit into your belief?

Solomon Mutswairo: Well, there has been a lot of talk about going back to our culture. I have no quarrels with that. There is nothing wrong with going back to one’s culture. But culture is a dynamic force; it is something that grows. We cannot think in terms of going back a hundred years into our culture. I believe since it is dynamic, we should accept that dynamism which seeps into our present society rather than wholly accepting those cultural norms that are no longer timely. So, thinking along those lines, I should like to think that those elements of our culture that are good, acceptable, should be retained. And those which are not will fall apart. Therefore, we will be forging ahead with a new culture, a hybrid kind of culture, which incorporates both the Western and the traditional. I do not believe I could be an advocate for a purely traditional culture in Zimbabwe, because we are now greatly influenced by other cultures, particularly the Western culture, which includes European and American. And American influence is very great, not only in this country but throughout the world, in terms of clothing and food and music and dance and general thinking. So, how are we going to retain purely that which is Zimbabwean? I say that we live in a culture within cultures, a new culture in Zimbabwe that fits our young. This is quite obvious in our music. The most popular music is not quite traditional. More particularly, it is more Western, which means our culture is moving from one phase to another. So, that’s what I believe. Are you going to dictate to the people to accept a particular cultural element, or are the people going to choose? So, what the people want is going to be an established kind of culture. It cannot be dictated. For example, I have never seen Dr Mahoso engaged in the traditional dances although he advocates going back to tradition. And I’ve never seen any of these educated people engaged in our traditional dances. They are like pieces in a museum that they would like to preserve.

An invaluable insight for Tsvangirai on agreeing to accept Jacob Mudenda as elections chief. (Tsvangirai was on national TV the other day attempting to dissociate Mudenda from his Zanu PF “past”):

“People should be thoughtful about those they choose to be leaders, the impact their choices would have on their country, region or global community. Individuals have histories, individuals have images, and individuals have reputations. When they are selected to lead their nations, those images, histories and reputations go along with them.” – Johnny Carson, US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa commenting on Kenya’s  Jubilee Alliance coalition led by chaps facing charges of crimes against humanity at The Hague.

They say you do not kick a man when he is down, yet sometimes you feel you do need to push your boot right up the ass of a man lying prostrate.

Why the hell did we not see some folks violating a lifeless Gaddafi? But that’s story for another day.

I couldn’t help but have a belly laugh when I read the story of Kunonga as posted online by the Herald newspaper. The headline read: “Kunonga evicted, six bouncers arrested.”

This for a man, supposedly of the cloth, to hog news headlines as a perpetrator of violence against fellow Christians? You of course have to ask where the “communion” he purports to represent fits into that degenerate agenda.

What is of concern of course is that the history of Christianity is littered with Kunonga types who subvert the Gospels but still insist theirs is a fight for the good of the Faith.

He is not likely to accept his irrelevance (not to mention his irreverence!) anytime soon and because he has been fed a false sense of invincibility by virtue of his political affiliations, his still remains a fight for the greater good never mind the glaring contradictions therein.

For a long time Zimbabwe has been subjected to focus on Church/State relations, with clergy who pander to the political tunes strummed by nationalists being allowed to flourish by the political elites.

We all know the fate of priests who decided to stand with the people and took these ruling elites to task about such things as good governance and human rights.

A guy like Kunonga makes you quickly forget the call to the magnanimity of the heart, goodwill of man, forgiveness and other such Christian and ubuntuism virtues.

You do indeed get that orgasmic of moment of “gotcha” and actually enjoy seeing him in the mud. And why not, you even want to stick foot right there and not regret it.

We continue to watch where he goes from here, but because lawyers are there to earn a living, he has already set into motion a court challenge of the decision that seeks to bring sanity to the good Church.

So much for the Christmas spirit, you have to feel sorry for the legal counsels hired by this man.

I have been bugging over the past few days, imagining and re-imagining the olive leaf Tsvangirai says he will extend to Zanu PF “moderates” when he assumes power. It appears to be a given that he will saunter into State House in the coming polls, never mind the doomsayers in the form of Freedom House.

But then Zanu PF does not think it is about to hand over the keys to anyone: Mugabe and his curious motley of Afro-optimists who nevertheless many say double as inveterate political misanthropes are firmly convinced Zanu PF will win.

It strikes me as kowtowing to the politics of meaningless appeasement when Tsvangirai says he will not hesitate to co-opt favoured Zanu PF officials into his perceived government. What is he saying about the men and women within the MDC-T who have dedicated their lives to unseating Zanu PF?  Are they less skilled in “statecraft,” to borrow from his own secretary general? And he would still have to be answerable to Zimbabweans who sprung him to power having these Zanuoids in his cabinet, that is if his own lieutenants allow it to happen.

If MT is surely sincere about this thing, I call it a thing because that’s what it is, he only pays into the hands of critics who say, he along with his top officials, remain Zanu PF at heart despite all pretence to the contrary, and we know such critics only have to point to what they see as his fabulous spending habits that only seeks to keep up with Zanu PF profligacy.

There is no one to appease in Zanu PF period. The only appeasing is the one he mentioned about appeasing the gods over the blood of pro-democracy activists!

The masses trust the MDC-T with their vote because of the promise of re-birth, of restoring Zimbabwe’s UDI economic juggernaut the same MDC-T policy czars love referring to but was decimated by Zanu PF.

Come on, this is politics, appointing Zanu PF officials into an MDC government is not only political folly of the highest order considering the fact that we know how the same people have plundered state resources to finance their political party activities, but we already know Zanu PF will never respond in like magnanimity in the event Mugabe beats Tsvangirai!

This is African politics for fuck’s sake where there has been cyclical abysmal failure to transplant “the US model of democracy” on the continent despite all evidence of parallel governments being run by the frivolous coalitions that defeat the whole concept of a truly bipartisan regime.

Perhaps MT has been misquoted, perhaps like Gabriel Shumba on the formation of his political party a few years ago, he was only joking, but this ain’t no laughing matter as he seems too eager to win over some Zanu PF folks, perhaps as his own political strategy that if he has them on their side, the military and other Zanu PF spoilers are kept in check?

Perhaps he needs to re-read the history of African politics and he will find that this fantasy will turn out to be a petard that will blow up on his already perforated face.

Two chaps from two totally different backgrounds found themselves back in Zimbabwe in the past couple of weeks.

One was a guy who toiled at the once glorious and well paying NRZ but left the misery of unpaid labour and headed for South Africa a couple of years ago. The other, a wise guy who has seen the world as a journalist, public relations guru, university lecturer and everything else in between and went to Botswana looking for a piece of that Khama wealth.

When the NZR guy came through, he had on his mind returning to his former job seeing he was missing home rather too terribly. He has some job in SA and looking at him, I thought he must be better off than he was back in the day as a railwayman.

He looked fit, his skin was “ruddy” and was generally clean, leading me to conclude that the grass sure must be greener on the other side. But here he was saying he had in mind settling back home and living the rest of his life to the fullest.

He made rounds to meet up with erstwhile work colleagues to get the pulse of what has been happening, who died, who got promoted, who left the country, who ran off with somebody else’s wife, you know the usual stuff old friends talk about.

That’s when his dream of a blissful return to the motherland disappeared.

His NRZ buddies told they hadn’t been paid literally for years and were only continuing with the humiliating and tedious trudge to work because they had nowhere else to go. If you quit this job, where the fuck are you going to get another one seeing it is only the streets doing the hiring? Bulawayo industries have become ghost towns, everyone who is unemployed is selling something, what are YOU going to sell? Thus it was decided that it was better to continue going to work for no pay because one day a miracle would happen and the NZR would give them a year’s salaries in back pay!

If only that were not the apotheosis of naivety.

You see, the railwaymen did not have to tell him he was better off in a foreign land: he could tell this himself, and all the dreams of working for the prosperity of his country disappeared. And so it was that as I write, he is buried in his work somewhere in South Africa working for that country’s prosperity!

Now, to the other fella from Francistown, Botswana.

This chap says he wanted to contribute to the growth of the Botswana economy by registering his outfit as a legitimate potential contributor to the GDP, but Batswana red tape got him steaming through the ears.

He says he was told it was difficult to see how his proposed business would contribute to the Botswana economy, and in frustration, he shook the dust off his sandals and returned to Zimbabwe, rather reluctantly it would appear.

And now back to the motherland, he has to start afresh and chase the American greenback by meeting all sorts of characters he never imagined he would ever meet. Because American greed has landed on these shores and claimed permanent residence, this chap has a lot of navigating to do before his fiscally immoral compatriots fleece him of his hard earned cash and get him on the move again, this time: DESTINATION UNKOWN.

Granted, this chap would rather share his skills with our neighbours where the pickings reportedly come in bucketfuls, but as the Fates would have it, he finds himself right where he started. Yet the two chaps present two narrative strands that converge somewhere on the rainbow. These are patriots who, all things being in order, would earn a living here, watch their children grow, watch them bring forth grandkids and just enjoy being sons of the soil.

But yet here they are as grown men running around chasing the Devil’s coin all over the show like horny cockerels chasing after pullets. There is a lesson there. You figure it out.

When some people say Zimbabwe is a lawless country, buffoons imagine it to mean warlords roaming the streets a la Siad Barre’s Mogadishu. Because white farmers are no longer being killed on farms, oh well, you see we are a law abiding lot. My ass! You only need the very bad example of belligerent and fictitious veterans of the liberation struggle and how they have been left by the law enforcement agents to run riot and threaten the life and limb of poor Tendai Biti.

Surely if anyone besieged any brazenly incompetent Zanu PF minister’s office we all know they would get the baton stick and tear smoke treatment and as many a dare devil activist knows – including lawyers by the way – blissless nights await them at Matapi and Khami. Hey, these scoundrels are threatening the life of an elected government official. It could still be disgruntled small-scale farmers bum-rushing the offices of the unelected Joseph Made rightfully demanding that the GMB pays them seasons-old debts! He would still get protection. You see, thence the law ain’t choosy, only the colours. Talk about a blind ass!

But then I feel silly saying it because everyone knows this. That’s where the lawlessness comes in. If there was respect for the rule of law, the hooliganism of these broke-ass louts would have been dealt with already. The rather eerie thing for me is that it usually takes one moron who has given up on looking for a job but firmly believes Biti is “refusing with our money” to throw a fist, a Molotov, a brick at the FinMin before everybody wakes up to the actions of these lawless and dangerous elements. Only then will Zanu PF start disowning them.

The irony is that each time some whacky outfits come out claiming mayhem in the name of Zanu PF, Secretary for Administration Didymus Mutasa, spokesperson Rugare Gumbo are ever as quick as an MDC supporter escaping Zanu PF midnight marauders that these Chipangano clones are not from the Zanu PF family of law-abiding Zimbabweans. But not when the vets physically accost a government minister! (Not vets as in veterinarians, someone said the behaviour of the veterans borders on the illiterate, so you have to juxtapose that with an illiterate veterinarian before you confuse the two “vets”! ) So what happened to the special protection unit for ministers if there ever was such a thing?

And I can already imagine them frothing in the mouth reading this – and their response to this blog? “We will beat the crap out of this guy.” I am laughing already.